OBITUARY.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXVII, Issue 1416, 26 June 1915, Page 2

OBITUARY.

MRS HARRIETT COLE, AGED 72 YEARS.

The death occurred at Ohakune on Thursday night of one of Foxton’s earliest settlers in the person of Mrs Harriett Cole, relict of the late Edwin Cole, aged 72 years. The late Mrs Cole had been bedridden for the past two months and the end was not unexpected. The late Mrs Cole came out to New Zealand as a young woman of eighteen years, in the ship Wild Duck, to join her parents Mr and Mrs Durrant who had come out about two years previously and had settled with their daughter and her husband, Mr and Mrs Langley senr., at Lowry Bay (now Day’s Bay) Wellington. The deceased married her late husband and removed to the Manawatu taking up their residence in Palmerston. Mr and Mrs Cole were the first white people to settle in Palmerston, and their eldest son, Leonard (who was drowned in the Manawatu River in 1597) was the first European child born in Palmerston. The late Mrs Cole conducted the first hotel and store in Palmerston. They then removed to Poxton and conducted the first hotel and accommodation house, near the old ferry where the N.Z. Shipping Co’s, grading shed now stands. He disposed of the hotel to the late Mr Cook and removed to the Manawatu Gorge where he conducted the Ferry Hotel, subsequently returning to Foxtou where he started business as a saddler. Excepting for a short residence in Palmerston and Ohakune the deceased spent the remainder of her life in Foxtou. Deceased leaves a family of four daughters, Mrs Tunuiecliffe (Rangatatia), Mrs Sherrock (Ohakune), Mrs Broadbent (Hastings), Mrs Hancock (Sydney) and Mr Arthur Cole (Poxton), and a number of grandchildren to mourn their loss. Mrs Langley senr., at Te Wharangi, is a sister of deceased. The interment will take place at Foxton to-morrow, leaving her son’s residence, Robinson Street, at 2,30 p.m,